What cycling problems? I can shoot the Winchester 7/8 oz low noise low recoil aa's and they cycle fine with no modification.

 

I'm convinced it's slight manufacturing differences with the A400 from what I've read.

I've have my A400 Xcel (sporting) for almost 2 years now, purchased brand new, never had a cycling problem with it. I've shot everything from 7/8 to 1 1/8 loads with it. Friend of mine has the same gun in the parallel target model since new & also never a problem.

 

Not a proble

just dont cycle the light loads

What do you consider a light load?

 

My A400 xcel will cycle loads as light as 22 grams of lead. I didn't test anything lighter but tested about a half dozen shells to make sure I has some margin of error when shooting 24 gram loads for bunker.

My A300 Outlander was having trouble with 7/8 oz loads but it only had a hundred rounds through it when I tried it and wasn't broken in yet. Now that it has about a thousand rounds I should give it another shot to see how light I can go with the A300.

 

My 400 Xtreme will eat anything from 7/8 oz dove/target loads to 3 1/2" HeviMetal 1 1/2 oz at 1500fps! I've hunted with it for 4 seasons now and it has never failed me, even in 15 degree blowing snow, it still went boom boom boom!!

 

I use an A400 as well. I have shot 1 oz and 1 1/8 with no problems. It needed a couple of hundred rounds through it when it was new before it would reliably shoot the 1 oz loads.

 

Questions:
Have you seen A400s that wouldn't cycle light loads or just other autos that wouldn't?
If A400s above, were they new and broken in properly per the manual?

Out of curiosity, what do you consider light hunting loads? Probably many on these forums would associate "light" with target shooting and medium or heavy loads with hunting.

Which specific A400 were you thinking about buying?

 

The manual with my A400 MultiTarget says to shoot a half dozen
heavy loads (duck loads) through it to help break in. Mine has never
malfunctioned with 1 or 1 1/8 oz. loads.

 

I didn't even fallow that. I just started shooting and cleaned it after the first 100 rounds.

 

I shot my friend's A400 with Rio 1 1/8oz 2 3/4 drams target loads, around 1150fps or so, and seen others shoot Federal 1oz 23/4 dram light loads and both just wouldn't cycle. And both did cycle the 3 dram loads.

I'm looking to buy a camo A400 for duck and dove hunt primarily, but I would also use it to shoot trap, skeet and Sporting Clays and I'd use the 2 3/4" 2 3/4dram loads for that.

 

I'd send it back to beretta. We had four a400 xtremes between me and my buddies and 3 had to go back. Two were replaced and one never got fixed and beretta refunded the purchase price. One worked flawless from day one but was bought a year before the others. The other 3 were recently bought and it seems to be an issue w newer xtremes. These guns just would not cycle target Ammo reliably. Beretta did fix two of the guns and they now work great

 

Recently picked up the Xcel, have only shot two flats, have yet to have a failure to function with light and xtra light target loads.

 

My A400 Explor Action 20gauge cycles very poorly. Maybe half the time now with standard 7/8 1200 fps loads. Reading comments in shotgunworld.com forums this seems to be very common as it is designed to be a hunting gun and expects heavy loads.

 

Apparently the fix is to drill the second gas hole all the way through. That will void the warranty but supposedly makes it cycle light loads.

 

I've heard you just need to open up the one port a little bit. My friend has a 20ga that won't reliably cycle regular loads. Of course he broke a drill bit in it when trying to open it up. A friend was able to get it out. It's still not opened up enough.

 

There is a difference between the hunting and the target guns even though they are all "A400". I really wish one was an A401 or something with a slightly different nomenclature. They obviously have different purposes in mind with their builds even though there is overlap. While all are A400 they chamber different rounds 3" vs 3.5" hulls and have different KO designs to reduce felt recoil.

The target guns are optimized for shorter hulls and lower recoil loads while the hunting versions are optimized for typical heavier hunting loads. Sure there is overlap but each is optimized for a different purpose. On Beretta's website and literature it does say "it shoots all the 12 gauge ammunition, from 24 to 64 grams" http://www.beretta.com/en-us/a400-xtreme-unico-camo-max5/ so it's not to much to ask that it does as advertised. So you should be able to shoot 24 gram loads from all of them, but that doesn't mean the extreme version will compete heads up with an xcel version shooting clays as the experience will be a bit different due to design differences in things like the KO.

As vtofa mentioned drilling out the second gas hole does work and is very simple to do. You can start small and drill larger as needed. However before you tackle that yourself, I'd give Coles a call since they are an authorized Beretta repair center. Coles will do what is needed to get your gun to shoot everything from 24 to 64 gram loads which is what Beretta claims for the Extreme. Obviously any mods or changes done by an authorized repair center will not void your warranty so this would be the safe route to take.

Keep in mind the Winchester Super X3 sporting is chambered in 2.75" The SX3 Black Shadow is available in 3" or 3.5". The Realtree version is 3.5". So these different models are also optimized for different purposes as well and you might need to"re-tune" these as well if you aren't using them for the optimized purpose.

 

I shoot a A400 3.5inch and cycles 3/4oz reloads with no problems as in any semi auto it needs to be clean.

 

Gotta clean them Auto Loaders !!

 

I thought that (a long time 1100 owner) until I purchased a Beretta A400 sporting.

 

The SX3 Ihad was the sporting model chamberex to 3.5" and not once I had an issue, but we're a big Beretta fans and seems that the A400 fits me better.

The last thing I wanna do is send it back to Beretta and I'll be using it mostly for hunting.
We only shoot 3" shells for Duck and 2 3/4" for Dove, so said that, I'm hoping that Beretta makes a A400 camo chambered in 3" only, I havent looked.

 

love my a400's --- recommend the (3" a400 action) The a400 light is to light and doesn't swing as well in my opinion
even though its only slightly lighter

 

The a400 light is to light and doesn't swing as well in my opinion

I ended up buying a weight. That did the trick.

 

Any input on the A350?